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Unusually high levels of n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids.pdf (235.02 kB)

Unusually high levels of n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids in whale sharks and reef manta rays

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posted on 2023-05-19, 08:05 authored by Couturier, LIE, Rohner, CA, Richardson, AJ, Pierce, SJ, Marshall, AD, Jaine, FRA, Townsend, KA, Bennett, MB, Weeks, SJ, Peter Nichols
Fatty acid (FA) signature analysis has been increasingly used to assess dietary preferences and trophodynamics in marine animals. We investigated FA signatures of connective tissue of the whale shark Rhincodon typus and muscle tissue of the reef manta ray Manta alfredi. We found high levels of n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), dominated by arachidonic acid (20:4n-6; 12-17 % of total FA), and comparatively lower levels of the essential n-3 PUFA - eicosapentaenoic acid (20:5n-3; ∼1 %) and docosahexaenoic acid (22:6n-3; 3-10 %). Whale sharks and reef manta rays are regularly observed feeding on surface aggregations of coastal crustacean zooplankton during the day, which generally have FA profiles dominated by n-3 PUFA. The high levels of n-6 PUFA in both giant elasmobranchs raise new questions about the origin of their main food source.

History

Publication title

Lipids

Volume

48

Issue

10

Pagination

1029-1034

ISSN

0024-4201

Department/School

Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies

Publisher

Amer Oil Chemists Soc A O C S Press

Place of publication

1608 Broadmoor Drive, Champaign, USA, Il, 61821-0489

Rights statement

Copyright 2013 The Authors Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Marine biodiversity

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